Tex Perkins Announces 30th Anniversary Edition Of The Cruel Sea's 'The Honeymoon Is Over'

The Cruel Sea’s Tex Perkins has revealed that the band’s beloved third album, The Honeymoon Is Over, released in May 1993, is coming to vinyl for the very first time to commemorate its 30^th anniversary.

Featuring the radio-charting singles The Honeymoon Is Over and Black Stick, the band went on to win five ARIA Music Awards at the 1994 ceremony, including, Single Of The Year and Song Of The Year for The Honeymoon Is Over, Album Of The Year, Best Group and Producer Of The Year for Tony Cohen, whose resume included The Birthday Party, Powderfinger, Paul Kelly, and more.

“THE CRUEL SEA announce 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION of 1993 ALBUM RECORDING ‘THE HONEYMOON IS OVER’

“On vinyl for the very first time,” Perkins wrote on Facebook yesterday (26 May).

The 2023 edition of The Honeymoon Is Over will house unearthed previously unavailable B-sides on digital versions of the album.

“Celebrating the triple platinum, 5x ARIA Award Winning Album,” Perkins continued.

“Marking the 30th year of its release, The Cruel Sea are proud to announce a 30th Anniversary edition of their landmark album ‘The Honeymoon Is Over’ on June 23rd. This will see the band issue the album on vinyl for the very first time – alongside the digital debut of B-Sides from the four singles issued from the album - additionally collected on a deluxe 2CD release.” You can pre-order your copy here.

In November 2021, Tex Perkins burst back onto the Australian music scene after some time away by fronting the swamp-blues juggernauts The Fat Rubber Band.

“We wanted it to sound rural, to feel the dirt and the grass and the leaves," Perkins said of the band’s new music. A passion project between himself and multi-instrumentalist Matt Walker, the band came together through a mutual love of iconic Americana blues legend Link Wray.

The singer continued, "Another aspect that we wanted was for the sound to be sometimes a collision and sometimes a marriage of acoustic and electric instruments. We wanted that tension between mandolins and bouzoukis meeting fuzz guitars. We also considered percussion to be a vital element of the sound we were going for; we noticed in the recordings we loved from the 50s and 60s that often the tambourine hit, or the maracas, or whatever percussion, was right up there in the mix, right next to the vocal."

Earlier this year, Tex Perkins And The Fat Rubber Band followed up their 2021 self-titled LP with Other World.